A few quick hits, therefore the title. First, climate-wise, the Tahoe Basin finished the snow season with a strong March. That was apparent to me as the commercials on KFOG (the station I've been listening to via the interwebs in the morning for the last 14 years) touting the "9 feet of new snow at Squaw Valley!!1!" Unfortunately, the strong March was only strong enough to take the snow total to a meager 53% of average. (A quick aside: the story uses the word "normal" vs. "average." I hate that. What is" normal" anyway – especially when you only have ≈100 years of data out of millions of potential? Use what's accurate: average.) Of the watersheds in the region, that scored as the most, too. The Walker River basin finished at a dismal 39% of average. Look out summer, it might be a scary fire season. Things are dry, and if it gets hot, things will be extremely dry and flammable.

With a tip of the popular culture hat to either a stupid movie I never saw, or a post-Beatles John Lennon song I never particularly liked, my current state is either "Dude, Where's my Strength and Stamina" or "Starting Over." After stripping off a bunch of weight (probably unnecessarily, but sometimes life screws with you), and my situation being a roil of turmoil over the last few months, my physical fitness level has plummeted. I think things are finally bottoming out. I had a chance to get on a trail Monday, and to the yoga studio Tuesday. Wow. It, um, sucked? In one of the more egregious slaps in the face by nature, losing a fitness level occurs much, much quicker than attaining it. It seems all the work I did over the last 10 years evaporated in the last 5 months, and I am starting once again from scratch. As I unwillingly approach my half-century cake day, I am sure the re-acquisition of said fitness level (if even attainable) will be a more difficult slog this second time around.

Since next weekend is spring break for my kids, there are no events on the family slate for either this coming weekend or the next. Barring being roped into working either of the two races scheduled in my area, I might, might have a day to go exploring. I'll probably just do the oil and tire maintenance thing on the cars on Saturday and give myself Christian Magical Sunday to head out. Analysis paralysis! Where to go? I don't want to drive more than 90 minutes, though the draw to head to Austin, NV is strong (3 hours each way). Got an idea? Tell me.

This weekend I made a huge mistake hurling myself against Iron Mountain on Saturday. Not that it is an especially difficult trail (nice single track and modest elevations and gradients). Not that it was under especially difficult conditions (crisp blue skies, temps in the upper 40s to start, 50s at the finish). No, the mistake was going in the first place. You see, Spencer had his first-ever wrestling match, and I stupidly, selfishly missed it. And he even won. Double stupid, and double the you're-a-bad-dad feeling. M

Maybe that contributed to the overall SuckoMeter™ reading of 50.

The first portion of the run was actually pretty good, with a SuckoMeter reading of about 2. Doesn't get better than that. I wasn't fast, I wasn't in great shape, but the run was fun; just me and a Golden Eagle. Not even a vulture circling yet. I should have stopped. I don't listen to myself.

Yikes! Scary to meet on the trail!

The second part of the run, my body insisted that I listen. Both freakin' knees started to hurt to the point of no more running. The vultures appeared. The nagging voices in my head showed up. Aaaannd, I ended up doing the Loser's Walk of Shame to the car. That sucked. As a result, the SuckoMeter™ for the second portion was a respectable 80, resulting in a weighted overall score of 50.

My main camera battery died as I turned it on to snap the eagle, so pardon the shots, they came from my phone cam.

Despite the rain and snow for a couple of days during the week, the trail conditions were excellent. That is probably due to its distance to the east from the main spine of the Sierra. I would be willing to wager the area didn't experience much more than a dampening event. My only complaint about the trail is that since the last time I was out there, motorcycle morons have found it and, as is their wont, dug up some curves and had a hard time actually staying on the trail.

I don't understand the mentality of the people who do this. There are miles and miles and miles of 4x4 roads and motorcycle tracks. They find a track that is obviously solely intended for foot/bicycle/horse traffic, and feel the need to abuse it with a motorcycle.

As I said, both knees are hurting at the end of runs, and I'm not sure if it is a case of dual IT band issues, or just getting old. I'm almost convinced of the latter, though either way it slows me down even further than my genetics predispose me to. Sigh.

When I run, I don't wear headphones (a dog attack several years ago cured me of that), but I am a person that likes music. Usually, I get something well known - at least to me - have it rattling about in my head, then change the lyrics to suit whatever is happening. Some highlights from this weekend's activities:Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" Didn't have to change much of it, except I did substitute "Walking" for "Running" most of the time.The Beatles' "Hard Day's Night" This one got mangled as follows:

"It was a long downhill, and my IT hurts like hell.It was a long downhill, and my IT hurts like hell.But when I get to my car, I'll know in my heart,It really wasn't that far."

That one popped to mind when I was coming off an exploratory activity, looking for a way up to McTarnahan from the west. I did find a route that isn't too bad. The problem for me was on the planned route down, I missed a turn and ended up slogging cross-country, cross-slope, timber bashing through the snow to get to where I thought I was supposed to be. I guess that's what I get for trying to memorize the route and not take a map along. The route up was a bit sandy:

On Sunday, I marked a route far too long for me to run for others to do. I did do a down and back in Sullivan Canyon to mark the turn from Eldorado Canyon, since I couldn't drive it. While descending the canyon early, it was a bit chilly and my nose was running more than usual. That, of course, brought to mind the Bellamy Brothers' classic "Let Your Love Flow" but with the lyrics "Let your snot flow" instead. Fitting.The rest of the route, I drove to mark. Still, I barely finished ahead of the runners. Fast bunch.

So the good folks over at XKCD put out a infographic showing the breakdown of most played holiday music for 2000-2009 by decade of popular release. It's interesting to me. I don't necessarily agree with the premise that it's all an effort to ensure Baby Boomer preeminence in American culture though I think that definitely plays a part. I think the dearth of Christmas songs with popular release dates can be attributable to a number of other reasons. In no particular order:1. Music today typically has more involved themes than "Let It Snow" and being Holly Jolly. It tends to be more complicated and, let's face it, agressive. I just can't see "Have a Hip Hop, Gangsta Rap Christmas" album coming out any time soon.2. Overall, the younger generations are moving away from religion in general and Christianity (Christmas = Christ's Mass) in particular. I think the critical thinking skills and the ability to access many, many alternate points of view via the Internet has a lot to do with that. Couple that with the first point, and why would an atheist care enough about Christmas to create a song to celebrate something he or she doesn't believe in?3. Money: Who owns the majority of radio stations in this country? Baby Boomers. Who dictates what gets played? The owners of the stations. 4. Fear: Our leaders are successfully working to maintain elevated fear levels in the population so they can point to that as a reason to keep them in power. When was the fear level at an equal level? The communist threat of the 50s and 60s. The music at the time soothed the fearfulness with simplistic themes and hopes of a magical being taking all the trouble away. Makes sense to me that with the return of amorphous fears (war on terrorism, islamism, war on drugs, war on [fill in noun here]), the music would be once again pointed to simplistic and hopey themes.